AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
CAN MOTIVATION FOR CHOOSING TEACHING AS A PROFESSION PREDICT ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENT? THE ROLE OF GENDER, SECONDARY SCHOOL TYPE AND STUDY
PROGRAMME
a
ROBERT TOMŠIK
Constantine the Philosopher University, Faculty of Education,
Department of Educational and School Psychology, Dražovská
4, Post code: 949 74, Nitra, Slovakia, email: rtomsik@ukf.sk
Abstract: The paper deals with the relationship between motivation for choosing
teaching as a profession and academic achievement among Slovak teacher trainee
students. The aim of the research is to identify the role of a gender, secondary school type
and a chosen study programme as intermediary factors between motivation for choosing
teaching as a profession and academic achievement. Motivation for choosing teaching as a
profession was examined by using the SMVUP-4-S scale and academic achievement was
measured as a GPA on a sample of 402 teacher trainee students. For measuring the
statistical prediction Multivariate regression model analysis was used. The results showed
that motivation for choosing teaching as a profession is a significant predictor of academic
achievement (F (1, 325) = 2.307, p < .01), while gender (F (1, 325) = 2.658, p < .01) and a
secondary school type (F (1, 325) = 2.087, p < .001) play a significant role as an
intermediary factor. The model consists of motives for choosing teaching as a profession,
academic achievement and a study programme is not statistically significant in terms of
the statistical prediction (F (1, 325) = .539, p > .05).
Keywords: motivation, profession choices, teacher development, STEM, academic
success, gender differences, teacher trainees
1.1 Motivation for choosing teaching as a profession
Students have different reasons that lead them to choose teaching
as a profession. It is particularly important to understand and
establish the type of motivation for choosing teaching as a
profession, because the type of motivation is likely to affect
professional engagement and teaching style (Watt, Richardson &
Devos, 2013). The most commonly identified motivational types
of teaching in teacher training literature are: intrinsic, extrinsic
and altruistic motives (Brookhart & Freeman, 1992), which is in
concordance with the expected "values" - categories that are
further divided into specific components. The intrinsic
motivation is more durable and effective than the other types of
motivation (Klein, 2006). The intrinsic motives are the most
frequent when choosing teaching as a profession. They are
considered the most important because they are directly related
to the content of profession (Watt, Richardson & Devos, 2013),
and they are predominately good professional engagement in this
field (Fresko, Kfir & Nasser, 1997). The motives that are
connected to this issue also occur in pedagogical and
psychological literature, such as extrinsic and altruistic
motivation. Although higher performance might be achieved via
extrinsic motivation, it is only for a short term. The disputable
relation is also between motivation and a specific activity (Klein,
2006). The extrinsic motives in a teaching profession are
undesirable because of dissatisfaction in performance may be
shown in the teacher's workplace, as well as in their actions
(Fresko, Kfir & Nasser, 1997). We registered the following
extrinsic motives in pedagogical and psychological literature: a
desire to have steady income (Saban, 2003), a stable working
place after studies (Papanastasiou & Papanastasiou, 1997),
holidays (Kyriacou & Coulthard, 2000), job security (Johnston,
McKeown & McEwen, 1999), more time for family and children
(Watt & Richardson, 2007), and teaching profession prestige in
the society (Bastick, 2000). Altruistic motivation plays an
important role when choosing teaching as a profession. An
altruistic motive may be understood as the desire to improve
well-being of others (Klein, 2006). It is connected with the
concept of prosociality and it covers doing things intentionally to
help another person or a group of people. The altruistic motives
are closely related to intrinsic motives because they correspond
with the professional content (Kyriacou & Coulthard, 2000;
Saban, 2003). In relation with this issue, several models of
motivation for choosing teaching as a profession have been
developed. For example, SMVUP and Fit-Choice (Watt &
Richardson, 2007) models of motivation for choosing teaching
as a profession are based on the theory of expectation and values
(Eccles & Wigfield, 2002) and work motivation (Holland, 1985)
and self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Presuming
the impact of various social factors on the personality that are the
decisive factors in the choices of profession, the impact of socio-
cultural, family environment, peers, personality and other
influences can be considered to be significant determinants of
the choice. The model of motivation for choosing teaching as a
profession points to different psychological mechanisms that are
involved in the process of choosing teaching as a profession, but
all parts of the model work together in the decision making
process (Tomšik, 2016; Watt & Richardson, 2012; Figure 1).
Figure 1. Theoretical Framework of SMVUP Model Based on
Fit-Choice Model by Watt & Richardson (2012).
These models, based on the theory of work motivation, point to
the fact that not only the previous factors influence the
motivation (in general, or motivation for choosing teaching as a
profession), but also that the motivation influences the
performance (for example work performance, academic
achievement, demand for the tasks, interpersonal relationships).
1.1 Motivation and academic achievement
Motivation is defined as the process that accounts for an
individual’s intensity, direction and persistence of effort toward
attaining a goal. The psychological meaning of motivation refers
to the internal mental state of a person that relates to the
initiation, direction, persistence, intensity and termination
of behaviour. The issue of motivation and performance is not
only relevant in education science, but also in other spheres such
as work motivation or work performance. Motivation of
individual in the work place still remains one of the sensitive
subjects that determine the level of input that employees will put
in the organization to commit to good performance. This means
that motivation either intrinsic or extrinsic contribute to
employee satisfaction and thus enhances performance and
productivity (Bhattacharyya, 2007; Kuranchie-Mensah &
Amponsah-Tawiah, 2016). Motivation plays an important role
in the academic achievement of students. In the educational
perspective, motivation has a multidimensional structure which
is correlated with learning and academic motivation.
Psychologists have noted that motivation should be taken into
account in education because of its effective relationship with
new learning, abilities, strategies and behaviors, and they have
presented motivation for academic achievement as one of the
preliminary constructs for defining such a type of motivation.
Motivation for academic achievement is attributed to behaviors
which lead to learning and achievement. In other words,
motivation for academic achievement is such a pervasive
inclination towards doing a task achievement fully in a particular
context and assessing the performance spontaneously (Amrai, et
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